Monday, March 10, 2008

What's In A Name, Client 9?

Consider this. Eliot Spitzer is now, and forever will be Client 9. He is finished as Governor of New York. I hope for his daughters’ sake his wife is already talking to her attorney. And I hope he doesn’t cost as much as the call girl Spitzer took to D.C. On Valentine’s day!!!??? But I do hope her divorce attorney is a shark.

Clinton is a name that comes to mind in just a case like the Spitzer one. Sleazy sex scandal. Not Hillary, of course, but charming Billy. Not that Bill ever had a taste for the kind of babes who work for The Emperor’s Club, or that he ever paid for it except, after the fact, in lawyers fees fighting law suits. Maybe a settlement or two, but the sleazy sex part, the bad judgement regarding the wants of his little brain, the betrayal of his wife and daughter (in Bill’s case one and in Spitzer’s case, three), the lies, and finally the public apology. That’s classic Clinton. Spitzer called it a “Private Matter,” today in his press conference. Do you get the cognitive dissonance of that construct? Does Mann Act mean anything to you Governor? Your name is soon to be added to the list of famous men prosecuted under the Mann Act. You and Charlie Manson. Nice company you’re keeping these days. And not to leave Republicans out, let's not forget Larry Wide-Stance Craig.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

The Emperors Club (tee hee, snicker snicker) is the name given to the high priced prostitution ring that the FBI has been investigating and has now filed a case on, with an indictment and loads and loads of evidence gathered. Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, friend of Hillary’s, and probably Bill’s, is the first big name client to fall. This just might get real interesting as leaks dribble out. The rates these women were getting for their services is staggering. As Chris Matthews just said on Hardball, “More than Washington lawyers!” But just like lawyers these women are doing a dirty and difficult job. And apparently the old boys club of political pundits still think it’s a “victimless crime.” In the words of the late great Molly Ivans, “That’s chicken shit!” I’d posit that Spitzer’s wife and daughters don’t exactly feel that there aren’t victims in all of this.

Does Your Vote Count?

I’ve always wanted us to be a country where every vote counts. Sadly this is not the system we have. Maybe now, with all these first-time voters involved in our Byzantine electoral process, we can get a little electoral reform going. I sure hope so, since as long as I’ve lived in Utah, my vote has not counted in Presidential Elections. This gives a lot of lazy Democrats a reason to stay home on election day. Their rational is, “My vote doesn’t count. Why bother?”

Now the Clinton campaign is saying that the Mountain-West doesn’t count, the South doesn’t count, small States don’t count, New England doesn’t count, the Canadian border States don’t count, because they are either thought to be Red States or have such small populations as to be meaningless in a General Election. Well, I got news for you Senator Clinton, it pisses me off royally to hear you say that the only time my vote really does count—in a primary—is meaningless. I live in Utah, one of the reddest States in the Nation, and Barack won Utah in the Democratic Primary. Turnout was huge and for the first time in my voting life, I thought Utah just might vote Democratic in the General Election, if Obama gets the nomination. Call me naive, but if young people really do stay engaged, we might have a whole new map to call red or blue.

Texas has been a Red State for a long time. Why is Senator Clinton calling her slim lead in the actual vote tally (but not the delegate count) in the Lone Star State more important than his win in Wyoming? More than likely neither state is going to vote Democratic in the General Election, but with Obama’s bottom-up, grassroots organization, he’s got a hell of a better chance to win both those states than Hillary.

Strange Nookie and the Little Brain

Elliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, has just given a news conference admitting his involvement in a high priced prostitution ring. Spitzer used to be Attorney General of New York, and one would assume, prosecuted his fair share of prostitution cases. He is married to a lovely woman and has three daughters. What in God’s name would make such a man behave in such a way?

I’ve been told by male friends of mine that the penis has a mind of its own. A little brain if you will. But a little brain with a mighty influence on the big brain, and a genetic imperative to spread it’s seed. Anthropologists and sociologists have validated this theory—it is a male (little brain) drive to populate the earth with its offspring and so, it is driven to copulate with as many women as possible. I would buy this “imperative” theory if we weren’t already in danger of running out of livable space and resources. And at some point in evolutionary history this seed-spreading behavior becomes dangerous to the survival of the species. So why does the behavior persist? And to get back to the particular, rather than the universal, I don’t personally know any man wanting offspring with any of his strange nookie. So where does this leave us? Back at the cocktail party with someone else’s husband hitting on me, or some other unlucky woman, for no good reason other than his little brain’s doing all the talking. And just so you men know, your little brain isn’t a great conversationalist.

The most famous case of the little brain running the show and strange nookie being the thing it wants most, is the case of one of my favorite past Presidents, William Jefferson Clinton. His behavior is just so damn typical of what can happen when a man lets his little brain do the big brain’s thinking. Maybe the only men who don’t behave this way with strange women are the men who behave this way with strange men. I’m not talking about men who identify themselves as gay or bisexual. I’m talking about the men who identify themselves as straight. They have wives and children to prove their straightness, but they like to have sex with men. Idaho Senator Larry Craig is the best known, currently, of this type of little brain behavior. These are men who risk everything for a little hot man-sex in the public toilets of airports and parks all over America. I live in Utah, and believe me, there are plenty of men who identify with, and feel Larry Craig’s pain, while living in their large Mormon families, their wives cranking out kids year after year, believing themselves straight as the day is long. Do the straight men they cruse feel like strange nookie? I wonder.